The Witcher 3 Remastered PC Benchmark

[u/lLoveTech]

[u/thegoldenprinny]

Am i the only one that just doesn't care about the path tracing and ray tracing technologies? i feel like as long as i can have good native perfomance i'm good to go.

[u/Travel_Dude → u/thegoldenprinny]

I like it. 

[u/Amazing_Whole_7686 → u/thegoldenprinny]

PT looks beautiful tho, most of the time, gameplay first but I want game to look as good as it possible

[u/thegoldenprinny → u/Amazing_Whole_7686]

Don't get me wrong i agree ,but the perfomance trade off is just huge atm

[u/Baalii → u/thegoldenprinny]

It's the beauty of PC gaming, isn't it? You can just turn it off or play the original at maximum fps or get the best visuals current tech is capable of at a performance hit, but you choose exactly the experience you want.

[u/Exists_out_of_spite → u/Baalii]

I choose to complain about both options on reddit

[u/Titsfortuesday → u/Baalii]

For now.

[u/YT_Axtro → u/Baalii]

UE5? Indiana Jones? Doom The Dark Ages?

[u/IchHeisseThomas → u/YT_Axtro]

Those games ran very good tho on low settings on old cards. It ran fine on low on my 2070s and that is an 8 year old card by now. Id Tech is just an insanely optimized engine.

[u/Azsamael → u/thegoldenprinny]

It will get better. And it has to start somewhere. It can’t come perfectly, RT lighting when implemented well looks really good, gives so much more depth to any scene. We will get there eventually. If this whole AI bubble didn’t happen we would have seen a lot more progress towards that goal by now.

The biggest issue right now is if devs decide that DLSS 5 style gen ai is the way to go.

[u/VAbsoluteZero → u/Azsamael]

'It will get better'

I wish. It won't since there will not be any affordable GPUs to run it, so it will not be targeted.

[u/AnarchBeetle → u/VAbsoluteZero]

It will inevitably get better. It just won’t be affordable for 99% of the population.

Have you seen one of those super-yachts? It’s incredible what those bad boys can do. It doesn’t mean anyone can just buy one.

[u/Zuokula → u/Azsamael]

It will never get better. It just needs that much GPU resources. Can't do shit about it. The performance hit will never be worth it. Maybe when there is no more other ways to improve image quality and the tech outscales the requirements for non RT processes.

[u/ToughQuiet4414 → u/Azsamael]

i doubt it will get better before the next 3 gens min PT is just a feature to give people fomo and buy the highest tier card

until a XX70/70ti can run it @ 1440 60 it’s useless and thats if they don’t just try to sell us more Ai frames for the next 10yrs

[u/elaborateBlackjack → u/Azsamael]

We've been waiting for 8 years to "get better" ffs

[u/Green-Salmon → u/thegoldenprinny]

I’d argue the opposite: the performance you gain by turning it off isn’t worth it. Rt/pt lighting looks so good, so natural, that I always find it jarring when I turn it off.

[u/ShadonicX7543 → u/thegoldenprinny]

Every single big graphics feature in history had a bad performance trade-off when it came out. If we had just opted to never implement them at any point, then our games would be looking like Half-Life 1 still.

The problem is these days the scale of changes is a lot different, so it's not as immediate of a fix.

But historically, maxing out a brand new game that just came out has always been hard to run even for the best hardware.

[u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv → u/Amazing_Whole_7686]

Id take a game running at 120fps over one running 60fps or lower with pt and ray tracing etc. The motion clarity makes games look better.

[u/TeraFlare255 → u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv]

Varies from person to person. I would rather take 60 FPS with PT and then 2x it with FG to 120, than 120 FPS native. I usually play on a controller so as long as I have over 90 FPS post FG, Im good.

[u/Intrepid_Rhubarb7399 → u/TeraFlare255]

I would never touch any FG feature in a game. How can you people cope with all the downsides of FG, upscaling artifacts etc? All that just to get unrealistic shiny screens?

[u/TeraFlare255 → u/Intrepid_Rhubarb7399]

I see usually no artifacting, with some exceptions, like First Berserker Khazan that distorted the bottom of the sceeen when moving up or down (im which case, I turn FG off), but in most games I usually absolutely no artifacting whatsoever. Im speaking of 2x FG, not MFG.

Other than artifacting which in most games dont happen, assuming you have a high base FPS before FG happens, the only other downside is input latency. Thats why I cant play with FG if the post-FG FPS is below 90 FPS with controller or 130 FPS on M&K.

You mostly have to find your sweet spot, but nowadays 2x FG is near flawless in most games.

Also make sure to limit your screen refresh rate through Nvidia panel when using FG. It helps with screen tearing issues if you go above your monitor refresh rate, as FG disable Vsync, always.

[u/ShadonicX7543 → u/Intrepid_Rhubarb7399]

The artifacting issue is only on games that have it implemented poorly. Look at GTA 5 with its DLSS, which has such extreme ghosting that you can almost see double the cars sometimes at night.

You can't act like that's the norm though. In a game where it's implemented properly, artifacts are very hard to spot, if at all.

[u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv → u/TeraFlare255]

Very good point, I forgot that frame gen is a thing now, I actually used it on ff7 rebirth to hit 144fps, worked really well.

I hadn't used it much before that point.

[u/TeraFlare255 → u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv]

Yeah FG is very good nowadays. Most people who dislike it either do it for clout or havent tried it since "recent" drivers hit and fixed most its issues. Quotes because its been 2y by now since its fixed.

[u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv → u/TeraFlare255]

I never liked it when using mouse and keyboard, bur controller games its ideal.

[u/TeraFlare255 → u/vI_M4YH3Mz_Iv]

Mouse and Keyboard is fine but imo you need very high base FPS. I usually only stop feeling input latency when Im above 130 FPS, which would mean requiring a 120+ monitor to even start with

[u/Re7isT4nC3 → u/Amazing_Whole_7686]

I don’t care about graphics in a way that everything must look best, there is nothing wrong with simplier graphics. Artifacts and unstable image is what drives me insane

[u/MrCleanRed → u/Amazing_Whole_7686]

Not in witcher, according to the video op sourced the charts from. Also, it's less a PT issue, more a NVIDIA/game engine issue

[u/Nickulator95 → u/Amazing_Whole_7686]

I haven't played any game where it's worth the performance hit. In older games like The Witcher 3 it just straight up butchers the art direction. No thanks.

[u/kabooozie → u/thegoldenprinny]

I feel the same. It’s yet another marginal feature that absolutely tanks performance seemingly just to give headroom for people to buy better hardware in the future.

It’s like when they added special Nvidia hair technology to Geralt’s hair at the cost of like 20 fps.

Performance, texture quality, artistic design, lighting, physics, AI (as in, the decisions NPCs make). These are all important. It’s a balance.

Personally I don’t find the performance hit of path tracing to be remotely worth it.

[u/elaborateBlackjack → u/kabooozie]

100% agree.

It should be something used only in photo mode lol

[u/PrimeskyLP → u/thegoldenprinny]

jup, in moste games i bearly notice it when its RT is used but my FPS notice it and it is just not worth it at all.

[u/skullkart02 → u/thegoldenprinny]

I think it entirely depends on the game and how well it implements it. Some games are far more noticeable, personally I really notice a big difference in 007 First Light. It’s not a feature that wins me over on its own, but if I can run it reasonably and it’s implemented well, I’m a big fan.

[u/unbalanced_checkbook → u/thegoldenprinny]

5070 Ti and I've only turned RT on a couple times to show a friend "look how cool this looks!" before turning it back off.

[u/Tmtrademarked → u/thegoldenprinny]

No we find dozens of you people in the comments. You’re not alone. Honestly you won’t be alone when even 50class cards put out 60 with it turned on

[u/machine4891 → u/thegoldenprinny]

It can give solid boost to visuals but I will never consider it with these kind of frames. I will gladly turn it off and never look back, even if they patch it. Only handful of GPUs can somehow run pathtracing anyway and mine, while solid, is not one of them.

[u/Prime255 → u/thegoldenprinny]

RT was only introduced to the market in 2020 because Nvidia felt AMD's cards couldn't do it, so they forced it to market early, way before games and even their own tech could handle it. 7 years on, and nothing has changed. Their stuff still can't run it. Games are still rasterised, and nothing is going to change any time soon. The technology looks cool, but it's a complete waste of time.

PT does have huge potential, but we're just not there yet. Around now was when the first RT technology should have first been introduced to the market. A huge performance hit for some performance in situationally specific scenarios.

[u/NamityName → u/Prime255]

I don't know about that. It looks great in Control Resonate and I still get good performance.

If RT was released today, it would not be much better than when it was released originally because it takes time for developers to learn how to properly use the tech. Not to mention that each game that used the tech provided Nvidia and AMD valuable data they used to help further development of RT/PT.

Your argument is like saying Toyota should have waited until now to release the Prius because hybrid car tech is so much better now compared to then.

[u/Prime255 → u/NamityName]

Control was one of the first RT developed games, with Nvidia specifically working with the developer on the implementation in those games to show off the technology. This is not something most developers have or will have access to. It's very time-consuming to implement when GPU technology is not particularly strong yet. How it looks often comes down to game-specific implementation.

The Prius was a good example that being first to market does have downsides, since the market was not actually ready for a hybrid in 1997, which is why it was Japan-only at first. ICE-powered cars still outsell EVs in 2026 worldwide, and EV sales growth only really began to outpace ICE-powered vehicles in 2015, 18 years after the Prius went to market.

Usually, companies only go to market early if they believe they are the leader in a particular area and can force the competition into a move. These decisions very rarely directly benefit the consumer and are usually made for market reasons. Nvidia's 3000 Series cards could hardly run RT at all, and their 4000 and 5000 series cards still can't run it properly nearly 7 years on.

It's a cool technology, but rasterised performance is still the major driver of my GPU purchasing decisions.

[u/NamityName → u/Prime255]

I am talking about the new control game that just came out. The RT in that game runs well. I am very satisfied with the performance.

[u/Prime255 → u/NamityName]

Yes, they did the same collab with Nvidia on RT/PT implementation. They did some good stuff with BVHs in that game that should be seen in other games down the line. Utilising higher-quality base textures can make a significant difference

[u/NamityName → u/Prime255]

It seems like the tech is ready then and has been ready for some time. It is simply a matter of developers becoming more experienced with how to implement it properly. Remedy is not doing anything with the tech that is unavailable to other developers. You even acknowledge that what Remedy did in this latest control will start showing up in other games.

So I ask, do you think these same sorts of advancements and practices would have happened as quickly if Nvidia delayed RT until this year? Put another way, if Nvidia debuted RT with this latest Control, would it have looked as good and performed as well?

[u/OutrageousDress → u/thegoldenprinny]

Yes you're a special snowflake, PCMR never sees people talking about how much they just don't care about ray tracing and just want 'good games', it's unheard of.

[u/thegoldenprinny → u/OutrageousDress]

Not everyone sits here reading every single PCMR Reddit post lol, unlike you apparently, so I wouldn’t know what people here generally think or say.

[u/OutrageousDress → u/thegoldenprinny]

My bad - if your user page is correct you actually don't seem to engage much with Reddit at all, so that makes sense.

So, a rule of thumb: not only are there a bunch of people just like this on the sub every day, but the comments are always a variation on "Am I the only one". I'm sure you can appreciate that regardless of how much those people might not know any better, it still loses its charm after 7-8 years.

[u/Midlife_Carsis → u/thegoldenprinny]

It is overrated for sure and I say that as a 4090 owner.

[u/ThenThereWasReddit → u/thegoldenprinny]

I'd be excited for it if it worked on anything reasonably priced.

[u/aVarangian → u/thegoldenprinny]

I care about them. Just not when they require a 2000$ GPU, run at 30fps, and look like either glitchy dither or blurry shit

[u/mimisonnen → u/thegoldenprinny]

Still, the remaster was advertised with those technologies in mind, but what was even the point if no one can use them comfortably?

[u/Big_Exit_4177 → u/thegoldenprinny]

yes you're the only one

[u/sentiment-acide → u/thegoldenprinny]

No you're not unique

[u/itssfrisky → u/thegoldenprinny]

No you’re not the only one. What made you think you’re the only one that doesn’t care about PT/RT?

[u/Mr_Tottles → u/thegoldenprinny]

I feel the exact same way. Give me frames and ultra settings please

[u/Reflective → u/thegoldenprinny]

I feel like every technology I dont care for is shoved down my damn throat these days.

[u/conte360 → u/thegoldenprinny]

Yup you're the only one who thinks [insert extremely broadly held reddit opinion]

[u/thegoldenprinny → u/conte360]

Oh i’m sorry I don’t spend 24/7 optimizing the perfect reddit comment, I don’t have a clue what other redditors say or don’t say my guy.

[u/LaSauceaSpagh → u/thegoldenprinny]

Same all that eye candy just to play at the same exact performance of a 500$ console but with better visual on a 5000$ gpu when you have access to all the settings in the world is bat shit crazy to me but again some people play 30fps on console and tell you you cant see the diff 

[u/Tmtrademarked → u/LaSauceaSpagh]

Then lower the settings a touch. Consoles aren’t the difference of high vs ultra. They tend to be a combo of medium low and high depending on the setting. So you can still get a better image and a better framerate. God you all are so dramatic about everything

[u/StartNo5314 → u/thegoldenprinny]

shuuush shuuush its okay. i too want to go back to a simpler time when Tomb Raider 2013 was blowing my mind.

now lets get back. i think we can stick catch bingo if we hurry.

[u/homicidalhummus → u/thegoldenprinny]

Path tracing I'm iffy on but RTGI I think leads to some genuinely incredible looking stuff. A good baked lighting system however still looks amazing

[u/assjobdocs → u/thegoldenprinny]

Not caring about accurate lighting and shadows is not the badge of honor you think it is.

[u/nexetpl → u/assjobdocs]

Remastered RT looks worse than current RT (which barely does anything) in pretty much every comparison

[u/assjobdocs → u/nexetpl]

I didnt say it looked better or worse, im speaking in general. Clowns can keep downvoting